page_title: Ursulines of Quebec
section_title: Notable people
hierarchical_section_title: Ursulines of Quebec / Notable people
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Mère Marguerite d'Youville (1701-1771)
context_page_description: The Ursuline Monastery of Quebec City, was founded by a missionary group of Ursuline nuns in 1639 under the leadership of Mother Marie of the Incarnation, O.S.U. It is the oldest institution of learning for women in North America. Today, the monastery serves as the General Motherhouse of the Ursuline Sisters of the Canadian Union. The community there also operates an historical museum and continues to serve as a teaching centre.
  The complex was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1972.
context_section_description: Mother Marie of the Incarnation, the foundress, practiced devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and had established it in the cloister years before the revelation to St.  Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690). The first celebration of the feast in the New World took place in the monastery on 18 June 1700. The register of the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart begins in 1716. Pope Clement XI (1718) enriched it with indulgences. Mother Marie mastered the local languages and composed dictionaries in Algonquin and Iroquois, a sacred history in Algonquin, and a catechism in Iroquois.
  Geneviève Boucher, more commonly known as Mère de Saint-Pierre,  (1676-1766) served in the Order for over 60 years and is referred to in its annals as a "perfect Ursuline" and "the Methuselah of our history". Anne Bourdon, known as Mère de Sainte-Agnès (1644-1711), was the first Canadian-born superior for the order.
  The first superior elected after the conquest of the colony by England (1760) was Esther Wheelwright, a New England captive, rescued from the Abenakis by the Jesuit Father Bigot, and a protégée of the first governor, Vaudreuil. The Irish, Scottish and American elements in Canada have given distinguished subjects to this cloister, prominent among whom was Mother Cecilia O'Conway of the Incarnation, the first Philadelphia nun, one of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's earliest associates. The list of alumnae includes Jeanne Le Ber (1662–1714), the saintly "recluse of Montreal", and Saint Marie-Marguerite d'Youville(1701–1771), foundress of the Grey Sisters at Montreal.
  During the French Revolution (1789–1799) several French refugees were chaplains to the monastery, the most notable being Abbé L.P. Desjardins, who died in France as the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Paris. Through him were procured the valuable paintings by Philippe de Champaigne, Charles Le Brun, Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont, Pietro da Cortona and others, that adorn the chapel.
caption: Marie-Marguerite d'Youville (1701–1771), founder of the Grey Nuns
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